CIVILIZING HAWAII: ISABELLA BIRD BISHOP IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS

Nineteenth-century male European travel writerssometimes romanticize their destinations and dream they have arrived in untouched lands. The Hawaii Isabella Bird visited, however, was not an idyllic land, forgotten by time. Early in the nineteenth century, steamships crossed the Pacific, carrying goods and people from the United States, Australia, New Zealand, China, and Japan. The trade in sandalwood and fur brought many foreign steamships into Hawaii (Kuykendall 15). It was not uncommon for American missionaries to arrive in Hawaii via whaling ships that stopped in Hawaii (Kuykendall 16, 41). Hawaii, with its position between mainland America and Asia, was a valuable and strategic piece of property. Isabella Bird Bishop's 1875 travel memoirThe Hawaiian Archipelago: Six months Among the Palm Groves, Coral Reefs, and Volcanoes of the Sandwich Islandscomments on the political situation the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) faced in the nineteenth century.